DFA-DFNM Meetup Tonight: Ethics in Government

DON'T MISS THIS ONE! DFA-Democracy for New Mexico's regular monthly Meetup tonight in Albuquerque will focus on the timely issue of ethics in government and politics. Our panel includes MATT BRIX of Common Cause NM and JIM NOEL, Executive Director of the NM Judicial Standards Commission, both of whom are members of the Ethics Task Force appointed by Governor Richardson to examine what needs to be done to improve ethics and make recommendations for legislation to achieve it. Also on the panel are CARTER BUNDY of AFSCME and ELI LEE of Soltari.

We'll have a panel discussion and Q and A about reforming ethics laws in New Mexico that regulate campaign finance and the conduct of candidates and officeholders.

DFA-DFNM Meetup
Thursday, June 1, 7:00 PM
First Unitarian Church Social Hall
Carlisle and Comanche, Albuquerque

The Ethics Task Force met on May 30th and will meet again on June 28-29 up in Santa Fe. Anyone interested in reforming our state's antiquated and inadequate campaign finance, lobbying and accountability laws are urged to attend and keep the pressure on for genuine reform. Our discussion tonight can provide you with what you need to know about the process and how we can be effective advocates for ethics reform in New Mexico.

According to an article in the Albuquerque Journal, the task force set these reform priorities at their May 30th meeting:

• publicly financed campaigns
• caps on contributions
• legislative salaries
• a state ethics commission
• limits on gifts to candidates and public officials

The Albuquerque Tribune has more on this too. Governor Richardson has asked for a report from the group by November 1st and has stated he will use the recommendations of the task force to form the core of his legislative push for ethics and campaign reform at the next session in January. New Mexico is one of only five states that have no limits on campaign donations and one of only 11 that lacks a state ethics commission.

If you haven't yet RSVPed for tonight's Meetup, click here. To join our Meetup group and get on our email list, go here.

The DFA-Democracy for New Mexico Meetup was established in April 2003 as a Dean for America campaign Meetup. Once Howard Dean was out of the presidential race, we transformed ourselves into a progressive grassroots activism group and an information clearinghouse for progressives. We hold regular monthly Meetups on the first Thursday of each month. Our email list currently contains more than 680 people. We have loose ties to the national group Democracy for America but, like all DFA-related groups in every state of the country, we operate independently with no legal ties to DFA.